Archetech Issue 30 2017 - Page 42

NEWPORT STREET GALLERY
AN ARCHITECTURAL MASTERPIECE
Newport Street Gallery is the realisation of
the long-term ambition of artist Damien
Hirst to share his extensive private
collection of more than 3,000 works of
contemporary art with the public.
This iconic brick building, with its bold
vision and traditional craftsmanship, has
been highly praised in the architectural
world with accolades ranging from
‘Supreme Winner’ in the 2016 Brick
Development Association (BDA) Awards
to winner of the prestigious 2016 Stirling
Prize.
According to the judges of the Stirling
Prize:
“This highly accomplished and expertly
detailed art gallery is a bold and confident
contribution to the best of UK architecture.
Caruso St John’s approach to conservation is
irreverent yet sensitive and achieves a clever
solution that expresses a poetic juxtaposition
of old and new. The collection of buildings
is beautifully curated, pulled together by
the use of brick yet still expressive of their
individuality.”
The project involved the conversion of
three listed brick buildings, which had
been built in 1913 as carpentry and
scenery painting workshops for the once
booming West End theatre industry. Two
new build structures were constructed at
either end to create a gallery that spans
half the length of the street.
The entire gallery, which occupies 37,000
square feet, was internally restructured to
include six exhibition spaces with three
large galleries on each of the two floors.
The two levels of the gallery are linked by
a set of three elliptical spiral staircases,
which are constructed from white German
engineering brick with built-in precast
balustrades, making a spectacular feature.
A bold and sympathetic vision As both the ground and upper floors
within the five buildings are continuous
the spaces have the flexibility to
accommodate both individual works and
large-scale exhibitions. With some of the
inside floors taken out to open up the
space, the vast interior has been described
as ‘cathedral like’. In fact one of the central
galleries has a ceiling height of eleven
metres split over two levels to allow for the
installation of larger sculptures.
Designed by Caruso St John Architects,
the gallery occupies a terrace of new-build
and refurbished blocks that line Newport
Street’s eastern side opposite the elevated
railway arches in Vauxhall, south London. The central architectural inspiration for
the design was the original Victorian
brick buildings with their unusual
proportions, groups of low-level windows
and high blank walls. This composition
was continued in the design of the new
buildings, which are embellished by a
spikey saw-tooth roof at the northern end,
which echoes the industrial heritage and
local roofscapes.
Expressive brickwork
As the brickwork was very much the
unifying force binding the old and the
new elements together, it was important
that the new semi-industrial facades were
as sympathetic as possible to the listed
buildings, which was a challenge as much
of the old brickwork comprised all sorts of
different colours.
Peter St John, Partner at Caruso St John
Architects said: “We had to really search
for a brick that had something of the
quality of the existing building. The brick
we found, by Northcot in Gloucestershire,
is an oil release brick with a smooth
surface. It’s not like a London stock with
a sandy surface and the colour match is
pretty good.”
After a detailed selection process, master
brickmakers at Northcot Brick, who still
use brickmaking techniques that have
hardly changed over the centuries, created
two distinct bespoke blends: Newport
Light and Newport Dark to match to the
‘common’ fletton-style brick of the listed
buildings.
Both blends were essentially a variation